


Eddie's got a girlfriend?!

by 9liseraph6



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Reddie, reddie is canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 20:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20663543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9liseraph6/pseuds/9liseraph6
Summary: Beverly is having a party and decides to invite Eddie's girlfriend over. Richie hates it.





	Eddie's got a girlfriend?!

"Do you think you should invite his girlfriend, too?"

Richie overheard that one sentence coming out of Ben's mouth and couldn't help laughing while bursting in his bedroom. Him and Beverly were sitting on the end of the bed and jumped at Richie's loud entrance.

"Girlfriend?" he repeated slowly, trying not to laugh again. "Whose? Mike's imaginary one? He finally decided to introduce her to us?"

Richie jumped on the bed and laid down, kicking Ben's back gently with his foot. Beverly turned her body sideways to look at Richie while Ben rolled his eyes and got up from the bed.

"No, we were talking about Eddie's new girlfriend. You know, Penny? Ben and I are thinking maybe I should invite her to my birthday party on Sunday."

She had said that as if Richie was supposed to know who the hell was that Penny. His chest tightened a little and he could feel his blood boiling with the sort of anger he didn't know he could have in him.

He laughed it off, not knowing how else to react.

"You really want it to be awkward for your birthday? I mean, we barely even know her." At least, he didn't.

"I talked to her once." Ben informed them. "She was nice. Pretty upfront. A bit like you, Richie."

"Great. A cheap version of myself. Do we really need that, Bev?"

"Why are you being so mean ?" Beverly asked curiously. "You said it yourself, you barely know her."

Richie said nothing. Instead he put his head on the pillow and sighed, trying not to show his friends he was hurting. Why didn't Eddie tell him about that girl? Did everyone know but him?

Ben put some music on and they spent the rest of the afternoon discussing music, Richie not resisting long the urge to make fun of Ben's taste, teasing people being the only thing that could help Richie put those negative thoughts out of his troubled mind.

Sunday came quickly. Beverly had taken Stan, Mike and Richie as hostages to help her with her party preps. Ben, Bill and Eddie were outside trying to find a way to get alcohol for free. While Mike helped Beverly choose which songs were the best ones to play during the party, Stan and Richie were trying to make toasts with some of the food they had found in Beverly's kitchen. Richie was getting tired of teasing Stan in every way possible and suddenly became very serious. He glanced around to make sure he wasn't heard when he spoke.

"Hey, Stan. Did you know? Eddie's got a girlfriend. Crazy, huh? I mean... can you believe it? How did that even happen? I bet he paid her."

Stan shook his head.

"Don't say stuff like that in front of her." he warned Richie with a finger pointed to his face.

"It's not my problem if she can't take a joke. It'll only mean she doesn't fit the criteria to enter our club."

Richie could feel Stan's insistant gaze while he was trying to make that toast in his hand looking somewhat eatable. He didn't look back. Stan could read him better than anyone and he didn't want him to know how much he hated the idea of Eddie having a girlfriend.

He tasted one of toasts Richie had made and winced.

"Ew!"

He took the salt away from Richie.

"No more salt for you." Stan declared before throwing away the rest of the toast he had taste. "That's disgusting. How much did you put in it?"

Richie laughed and proceeded to make others, without the salt.

***

"It's so sweet. Did you write it?"

From the moment Penny entered Beverly's house, she hadn't stopped complimenting every little thing she had laid eyes on.

"No." answered Beverly patiently. "It's a poem someone gave me as a gift."

Ben looked embarrassed for a moment but Richie was too annoyed to make a comment on it.

They all headed to the living-room and Beverly put the music on. Mike made everyone laugh with some moves he made and it helped ease the tension Penny's presence had created. Not long after, everybody was dancing in a silly way on purpose. The house was filled with laughter and happy noises.

Out of breath, Beverly went to the kitchen to retrieve the toasts the boys made earlier with some soda and the one beer bottle Bill managed to sneak out from his dad. Richie took the beer as soon as Beverly put it on the table while Ben and Bill went to the kitchen and brought five different flavored bottle juices.

"Whose beer is that?" asked Penny amused to a non-amused Richie.

With the noise the music made, they pratically had to shout at each other's ears to be heard.

"Eddie's mom." he lied. "I stole it after our daily fucking session at her house."

Penny's face went red. She didn't seem to know if she was supposed to laugh or not. She smiled awkwardly, took a glass of orange juice and went back at Eddie's side.

"That's right. Get lost, you fucking idiot."

Mike looked him sideways when he heard that. Richie hadn't seen him there and laughed, embarrassed.

"I wasn't talking to you."

Richie sat down on the couch next to Bill who was trying out the toasts. When he saw Bill make a face he couldn't help but laugh.

Eddie quickly joined his friends on the couch and after a few seconds of reflexions he decided to sat next to Richie. Richie had tried to avoid any contact with him all afternoon so he wasn't very happy, though his heart still jumped in his chest when their hips brushed against each other.

"What did you guys bring for Beverly?" asked Eddie worriedly. "I didn't have enough money to buy her a gift so I just brought one of my comic books."

"It's b-better than n-nothing." Bill reassured him. "I bought her a b-book full of poems. She s-seems into that k-kind of stuff so I thought it'd be a g-good idea."

"Why didn't you tell me she liked poems sooner? My mom has a big collection of those in her room! Shit."

"What about you, Richie?" Bill asked suddenly. "What did you brought her?"

"CDs." he said before adding quickly : "But Eds' mom might let me borrow one of her books if I ask gently. That'd make a nice present."

"Shut up, Richie." Eddie warned him.

"Or what?"

Eddie pushed Richie who bummed into Bill next to him.

"I'm not joking."

"I wasn't, either."

"Fuck you!" Eddie said again but louder.

When the others turned to look at him, Eddie got up and left to the kitchen. Stan gave a nasty look at Richie.

From where he was, Richie couldn't hear what Beverly was telling Penny but he guessed that it was something like "don't worry about it, they fight all the time."

Bill punched Richie on the arm.

"Ouch!" Richie whined loudly. "What was that for?"

"Can't you see the jokes you make about his mom is seriously bothering him?"

"What, you think that's why he left? He's probably just looking for food somewhere."

Bill wasn't convinced.

Eddie was not coming back and Richie was getting nervous. Usually, Eddie was never really mad at him for so little. No. It was Penny. She was there and Eddie probably didn't want Richie to embarrass him in front of her. It made no sense, though. She couldn't have heard them talk from where she was. He saw her looking anxiously at the kitchen door and making to go in there. Richie quickly get up to stop her.

"You like this song?" he couldn't think of anything else to say to her.

"Yeah..." she answered distractly. "I'm going to check on Eddie. See if he's alright."

"No! Um... I'll go. You don't want to be near him when he's being a crybaby. Trust me."

Penny clearly didn't like what he had just said but she still let him be the one to go check on Eddie.

When he entered the kitchen, Eddie was writing something on a piece of paper he must had found somewhere in the house. He looked up to find Richie staring. He looked annoyed, but not at Richie.

"I'm trying to write a poem for Bev. I didn't know it was so hard to find pretty words that rhyme together. I read one of my mom's books once but I got bored after reading only one page. So I have no idea how this works."

Richie knew Eddie wouldn't have been mad at him for a joke as stupid as the one he had told ealier. He took some pride in knowing Eddie more than the others thought they did. Seeing him all stressed out for so little was hilarious, though. He walked towards Eddie and took the paper from his hands to read what he had written so far.

He read it out loud, to Eddie's embarrassment.

"Red is the color of your hair,

Red is the color of the air.

Your hair the color of fire

The warm air I breathe."

Richie put the poem down and stared. He wanted to laugh but the look of shame on Eddie's face forced him to only smirk at him.

"Why the fuck would the air be red, Eds?"

"The fuck I know! I just wanted it to rhyme. Poems make no sense, anyway."

"OK, OK. Give me that."

Richie took the pen from Eddie's fingers and started to write down some verses he remembered learning at school. There were some verses missing and he switched the name mentioned in the original poem with Bev's name but he thought it was all right. When he was done, he gave the paper back to Eddie who read it in silence at first, then he read it out loud as if to make sure he was really reading what he was reading.

"who is Beverly? what is she?

holy, fair and wise is she

is she kind as she is fair?

love doth to her eyes repair

then to Beverly let us sing

that Beverly is excelling" *

To Eddie's wide eyes and shocked face Richie only said : "You're welcome." and made to leave the kitchen, expecting him to follow.

Before he reached the doorknob, he felt Eddie's hand tightly grabbing his shoulder. He turned to look at him, surprised.

"Richie, I can't recite this to Bev in front of Penny. Right?"

Richie's good mood evaporated after he heard Eddie say that. He rolled his eyes and faced his shorter friend.

"Who cares?" he cried out annoyingly. "She's been your girlfriend for, what, a week? It doesn't matter if she likes it or not."

"Six days to be precise."

He had wanted to piss Eddie off with his remark but it didn't do anything.

"You're counting the days?" Richie snorted. "You sound like a prisoner counting down the days separating him from freedom, it's ridiculous."

He had sounded more upset than he had intended but he didn't care anymore. Richie was angry with Eddie.

"By the way, when were you gonna tell me you had a fucking girlfriend?"

Eddie was going to retort when he suddenly stopped himself. His mouth was open but he made no sound. He seemed deep in thought.

"I don't know." he mumbled after a moment of silence. "At first, it wasn't supposed to last. She asked me out and Bill thought I should say yes and…"

"Bill said what?" Richie interrupted. "Since when you listen to Bill?"

"He said it was better to live our lives without regrets. That we only had one life and that after what happened with… It… that life was too short and shit."

Richie calmed down a little at the mention of It. He thought of Georgie and felt terrible.

"Truth is I don't want to be with Penny anymore. But after Beverly invited her over I couldn't just break up with her, it would have made the whole thing too weird. And now I have to read this poem to another girl and I don't want her to think I like Beverly because when I break up with her she'll think I left her for Bev."

"It's you who had this idea for the poem." Richie said after a while, not really knowing what to do with the information that Eddie did not, in fact, like Penny.

"I know." he groaned loudly. "What should I do?"

"Just give the poem to Beverly. Nobody told you to fucking recite it in the first place."

"What about Penny? What do I do?"

"I can get you rid of her if you want." Richie smirked. "I'm pretty good at annoying the shit out of people."

"No," Eddie laughed. "you stay out of this."

Beverly seemed pretty happy with the gifts her friends got her, though she did tell them they didn't have to bring one.

Ben bought her flowers and chocolate, which Richie thought would be more appropriate for Valentine's Day. Poor Ben was too obvious. But Bev seemed touched.

Bill had given her the book he had talked about to Richie and Eddie earlier.

Richie came next and gave Beverly the CDs of a band she had told him she was a fan of the other day at Ben's house. That pleasantly surprised her he was glad to see.

Eddie hesitantly handed over the poem Richie had written. She read it in her head, to Eddie's relief. When she was finished, she gave him the brightest smile they had all seen on her face. Eddie was pleased and smiled at Richie as a silent thank you.

Mike and Stan bought a gift together with the money they had. They bought Beverly a new bike, which she was pretty excited about. She hugged them both fiercely. Richie was amused by Ben and Bill's faces.

And finally, Penny offered her new friend two set of clothes that even Richie had to admit would look great on Beverly.

The next thing Beverly absolutely wanted to do was to try her new bike. Ben, Richie, Eddie and Bill followed her outside while Stan and Mike stayed behind with Penny. Once outside, Beverly was surprised to see Eddie coming along but Eddie made up some excuse to be able to go with them.

Beverly and Bill were going very fast, and soon it became a competition between the two of them. Ben tried to keep up the best he could but was always far behind.

Eddie and Richie prefered staying far away from them, circling around each other and trying to make the other fall. For a moment, Richie forgot all about Penny.

Thirty minutes or so later, with Beverly, Bill and Ben too far for them to catch up, Richie and Eddie got off their bikes and started walking. The excitement gone, Richie's thoughts kept returning to Penny.

"If you really didn't want to go out with Penny, why did you say yes?"

"I told you, I didn't want to have any regret. Life's too short and all, you know?"

"But you will break up with her?" Richie insisted.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to do that." Eddie said desperately. "I mean, would that make me an asshole?"

"It's giving her false hope that'd make you an asshole."

Eddie's face was grave. To cheer him up, Richie pinched his cheeks. Unlike the other times he had done this, Eddie didn't pushed him away. Instead, he smiled and pinched Richie's cheeks back. Soon, they had somehow made it into a game, each boy trying to pinch the other more times than the other. Eddie's laugh warmed Richie's heart. He couldn't stop smiling. They stopped after a while, both grabbing their hurting sides from laughing too much. They picked up their bikes that they had let fall on the ground during the game and kept walking until they came across the Kissing Bridge. It's been a while since Richie had been there. He started panicking when he remembered the letters he'd carved into the wood.

R + E

His eyes searched everywhere. He could feel himself going red in the face. He could not remember where he had carved it and he was afraid Eddie would find it before he does. He almost threw himself on Eddie when he saw him kneeling to get a closer look on the other letters.

"Think someone carved your name and put a heart next to it?" he said jokingly. He was doing everything he could not to have a panic attack.

Eddie rolled his eyes.

"No, seriously." Richie said before he could stop himself. "You think one of us have their names on it?"

"Bev, probably."

"I bet Bill's got a secret admirer." Richie said while kneeling besides Eddie.

"Even if he got one, his name is just too common. There must be a dozen Bills or Bs written on that thing."

They read some notes left by unknowns and searched for Beverly's name before getting up again to leave. No Beverly, no R+E. Although he was relieved that Eddie didn't find the inscription he had made, Richie was disappointed that he didn't.

It was only a couple of weeks later that Eddie gathered up the courage to tell Penny it was over between them. Oddly enough, she had taken the news pretty well. Maybe she didn't like Eddie as much as Richie thought. Either way, he was glad it had been easy for Eddie. And also happy his friend didn't have a girlfriend lurking around.

Alone in Richie's bedroom, Richie was dying to ask a question he had wanted to ask since the moment he found out Eddie had a girlfriend. He waited until Eddie put away the comic book he was reading to do it.

"Penny was your first kiss?"

Richie knew Eddie never kissed anyone before Penny, but he wasn't stupid enough to outright ask Eddie if Penny and he kissed. Eddie chuckled. He seemed more embarrassed than surprised by the question.

"You're gonna laugh at me…"

"I'm always laughing at you."

Eddie hesitated.

"We didn't kiss at all." he finally admitted. "Don't say it." he warned.

"Say what? That you missed the opportunity to lose your lips' virginity?" Richie retorted jokingly.

Eddie chuckled again. They stayed silent for a moment before he spoke again.

"What about you?" he asked tentively. "Did you ever kiss a girl?"

Richie pretended to think it through before answering, making Eddie roll his eyes.

"What do you think it feels like?" Eddie asked seriously.

Richie thought about kissing Eddie right there and then and his heart started to pound hard in his chest. He wanted to taste Eddie's lips so bad it made him dizzy to think about.

"It feels fucking great when I kiss your mom. It's like kissing a soft strawberry cake."

"You're an idiot." Eddie only said.

"You know what I think kissing you must feel like?" Richie asked, his heart's pouding being so loud he hoped Eddie wasn't hearing it.

Eddie was taken aback by that question and looked at Richie. His face showed a hundred different emotions. Richie didn't know what to do.

"I think it'd feel better than kissing a fucking strawberry cake."

And with that, Richie kissed Eddie on the lips. It was a soft kiss but Richie could feel his heart trying to claw its way out of his chest. Eddie's lips weren't moving but he didn't move away. When Richie was sure he wasn't disgusted by it, he deepened the kiss, pressing his lips hard against Eddie's. He didn't know how much time had passed when he break the kiss. Eddie's eyes stayed closed a second longer than Richie. They looked at each other as if they were seeing clearly for the first time and Richie felt happier than he ever remembered being his whole life. He hoped Eddie felt the same.

"You were right." Eddie said softly. "A strawberry cake is nothing compared to this."

Richie was about to laugh when Eddie cupped his head with both of his hands and gave him a kiss so passionate Richie knew he would remember it all his life.

**Author's Note:**

> * poem inspired by W.Shakespeare's work "Who is Silvia? What is she?" that I found online.


End file.
